Two million of us are playing this multiplayer game, just days after its release

We all remember the days of rushing to get home from school, leaving a voicemail for your parents explaining you were going to your friend’s house for dinner – because they were lucky enough to have an N64 or a PlayStation with two controllers. Now, Swedish developer Hazelight has reignited that joy and become somewhat of a beacon for co-operative games, and Split Fiction’s record sales are proof that they still know exactly what they’re doing.

Arguably one of the best multiplayer games of the year so far, Split Fiction amassed a whopping one million sales just 48 hours into its release, with Hazelight taking to Blue Sky to celebrate such a huge milestone. And considering the fact that the game is a split-screen co-op catered to gaming duos, much like the studio’s other triumphs like A Way Out and It Takes Two, that means that the huge number of sales probably doubles the amount of actual players.

If you own Split Fiction, then you can invite a pal through the Friend’s Pass without them having to purchase the game themselves. In an industry where microtransactions run rampant and cosmetics cost an arm and a leg, it’s refreshing to see that despite Hazelight’s ability to create genuinely incredible multiplayer games, they don’t feel the need to charge absolutely everyone for the privilege of playing them.

It’s created an ethos around Hazelight Studios that’s truly admirable, and so it comes as no surprise that Split Fiction has seen such an immediate success. The award-winning It Takes Two took just shy of a month to hit the same figures, and studio director Josef Fares recently revealed to The Washington Post that the game has sold 23 million copies so far. That’s a mind-boggling number, and we’d love to see Split Fiction reach the same heights and go even further.

While you can play Split Fiction on the Steam Deck, we’re hopeful that Hazelight’s masterpiece will come to the Switch 2, in the meantime, you can check out our picks for the best games like It Takes Two on the Switch for some more multiplayer fun. Or, if you’re after some free stuff in some of the best mobile games, we’ve got all the new Tribe Nine codes and Zenless Zone Zero codes for you, too.